This holiday season, FreeEnterprise.com is wrapping up the year in red tape. The federal government—Anti Claus—imposes $1.8 trillion in regulatory costs each year, making businesses yearn for a lump of coal instead. The government’s size and scope is so vast that, as Mark Levin writes in The Liberty Amendments, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) couldn’t determine the number of criminal penalties attached to all its rules and regulations.

On the fourth day of regulatory Christmas, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave to me … a complete overreaction in the name of food safety.

Locally sourced ingredients are all the rage right now—and for good reason. Local foods are fresh, promote food variety, support the local economy, and usually have less environmental impact. But as the FDA writes a heap of rules stemming from the 2010 Food Safety Modernization Act, small farms have reason to be concerned about their future.

One of the most troubling regulations requires that farmers monitor all animals, domestic and wild, that go near their produce. New Morning Farm owner Jim Crawford said that it would be nearly impossible to monitor his 95 acres with just a handful of employees. “Wildlife is everywhere in the farming environment,” Crawford said. “It’s just not a realistic expectation.”

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